Brazilian Science Towards a Phase Transition

commentary Brazilian science towards a phase transition Ado Jorio, Francisco César de Sá Barreto, José Francisco de Sampaio and Hélio Chacham The historical trajectory of materials science in Brazil shows the fast establishment of a high-quality, sizeable and productive scientific community. It is now time for a change in attitude towards real innovation and excellence.

he Amazon forest covers about 40% attributed to ancient agricultural activity Pesquisa Agropecuária are well financed of the Brazilian territory, an area by former Amazonian civilizations5. and ideally structured to deal with the Tabout 6.5 times larger than France. Among the unusual aspects of the black scientific and technological issues related There, a very rich ecosystem exists in a soil is a high amount of carbon, up to to the Amazon region and agriculture, metastable equilibrium on a generally 70 times more than is present in other respectively, having held many research poor soil base, which makes deforestation soils. Understanding the structure of these programmes and organized national and a very serious problem. However, a rather carbon materials, the way they have been international meetings on Indian Black frequent and interesting phenomenon formed and their role in keeping the soil Earth. It is also important to mention the can be found in the region, the so-called productive over a long period of time are considerable impact made by publications Terra Preta de Índio, or Indian Black Earth necessary questions to be answered so that written by Brazilian researhers on related (Fig. 1). This soil can be distinguished such soil can eventually be reproduced in subjects, for example on carbon materials. from other types by its black colour and a laboratory. A simple crosslinked search using the ISI by its unusually high productivity1,2. It It would be natural for Brazilian Web of Science database between the words has produced much more vigorous and researchers to have a highly visible role in ‘carbon’ and ‘Brazil’ yields around 9,000 nutritious crops and fruits than any other this subject area. Brazilian institutes such publications with over 100,000 citations. soil in the region over a much longer as the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da However, despite all this investment and usage time3,4, and its formation is generally Amazônia and the Empresa Brasileira de effort, no Brazilian paper in the field

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Figure 1 | Materials science in the jungle. a,b, The Terra Preta do Índio (a) can be found in different locations in Amazonia b( ), with marked regions shown on the map6. Open squares represent principal known Terra Preta sites, and filled squares show the locations ofTerra Preta sites. Part a is reproduced courtesy of Newton Falcão, from the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia; part b is reproduced with permission from ref. 6.

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has appeared in a high-impact journal ab such as Nature or Science. The case of the 1,000 Terra Preta de Índio is a typical example 200,000 of science in Brazil, characterized by solid 800 and important work and that only needs a 150,000 600 change in attitude to reach the top level of 100,000 excellence in results. 400

Building science from scratch 50,000 200 Brazilian history in science and innovation with worldwide impact 0 0 started only in the early twentieth 1960 1970 1980 1990 20002010 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 century with Alberto Santos Dumont and Year Year Carlos J. R. Chagas. Santos Dumont, the son of a wealthy family of coffee producers, Figure 2 | Brazilian science in the literature. a, Total number of Brazilian publications per decade. lived most of his life in Paris, where he b, Number of Brazilian publications in journals with the word ‘materials’ in the journal’s name. Each bar developed the first practical dirigible represents the number of papers published over a five-year period. The data are taken from the ISI Web balloons, flying around the Eiffel Tower of Science database. in 1901. He also performed the first ever public flight of an aeroplane in 1906, with his ‘No. 14-bis’ aircraft. Chagas, also these initiatives, the number of Brazilian economic growth and investments the son of coffee farmers, worked at the publications (as registered in the ISI Web According to the International Monetary Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro. of Science) grew exponentially from Fund, in 2009 Brazil was among the ten There, and in the Brazilian hinterlands, 19 between 1960–1970 to more than richest countries in the world (Fig. 3a). he discovered in 1909 the Chagas disease. 200,000 in this past decade (Fig. 2a). However, when the gross domestic product His work is almost unique in the history Brazilian research in condensed-matter (GDP) is analysed per capita, the difference of medicine: he described the whole physics and materials science effectively between developed and developing infectious disease cycle — the parasite, the started in the late 1960s. A large supply nations is clearly shown (Fig. 3a, solid vector, the clinical manifestations and the of international credit resulted in huge line). Developed countries also show a epidemiology. The achievements of Chagas investments in infrastructure: federal higher percentage of GDP investment and Santos Dumont are still being felt freeways, hydroelectric and nuclear power in research and development (Fig. 3b). today: Chagas’s results are closely related to plants, oil extraction and refineries. At the This is the picture we hold today, after the the strong Brazilian research community same time, infrastructure for university turbulent twentieth century, a period when in epidemiology, while Santos Dumont’s research, focused mainly on natural Brazil oscillated between democracy and pioneering efforts helped to launch the sciences and engineering, also started dictatorship; from so-called economic highly successful Brazilian aerospace to be built up. Also worth mentioning miracles with average economic growth industry — Brazil’s Embraer is at present is the creation in 1966 of Universidade at 10% each year for many years in a row the third-largest aircraft producer in de Campinas and the establishment of to explosive inflations, reaching values as the world. research infrastructure in several federal high as 365% each year. It can be argued universities, as well as state universities in that Brazil achieved a healthy economic and São Paulo state. In the case of experimental political structure only in the early 1990s, The number of Brazilian condensed-matter research, the early and it has been maintaining it ever since. publications grew 1970s saw the setting up of research Nowadays, Brazil is a member of several departments in Universidade Federal de economic organizations such as Mercosul, exponentially from 19 Minas Gerais; Universidade Federal de the União de Nações Sul-Americanas, the between 1960–1970 to Pernambuco; Universidade de São Paulo; G8+5 and the G20, and has hundreds of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, international commercial partners (25.9% more than 200,000 in this as well as others. In the 1970s and 1980s, coming from Latin America, 23.4% from past decade. the physics and chemistry departments at the EU, 18.9% from Asia, 14.0% from the those universities received large amounts United States and 17.8% from elsewhere). of federal grants — mainly through In the 2009 meeting of the World Economic It was only in 1951 that the Brazilian the Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos Forum in Davos, Brazil was considered government created the first two federal agency — to develop research the country with the largest increase in public agencies charged with the task in the growth and characterization of economic competitiveness. Brazil has of developing scientific research: the semiconductors and for the establishment a sophisticated technology sector, with Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento of optical, magnetic and other materials projects in aviation, submarines, space Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) had characterization techniques. This move research (Brazil is a member of the the aim of promoting and stimulating was essentially the origin of materials International Space Station), biofuels scientific and technological investigations. research in Brazil as a whole. From the (with an emphasis given to ethanol) and On the other hand, the Comissão de 1990s to the present time, this federal petroleum (73% of the petroleum used in Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível research financing system has been replaced the country is produced in Brazil itself). Superior (CAPES) was set up to develop by local state agencies and by federal However, Brazilian companies, with a few and improve human resources for financing of large specific projects and exceptions, still do not have their own teaching and research. As a result of research networks. research and development laboratories and

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are scarcely supporting university research. São Paulo (Laboratório Nacional de Ciência associated with the large income disparity. As a partial solution to this problem, e Tecnologia do Bioetanol; CTBE). The Although in 2003 Brazil spent R$18 billion the federal government has established first (CETENE) is part of a big project to (R$ is the Brazilian unit of currency, the ‘Fundos Setoriais’ — or sectoral induce stronger development in the poorest the real), in basic education, in 2010 the funds — system, which is based on the regions of Brazil (the north and northeast). Brazilian Department of Education invested taxation of companies to finance research in The second (Dimat) represents a push to R$59 billion (1 US$ ≈ 2 R$). In the past their areas of production. develop state-of-the-art scientific metrology five years, 13 new federal universities Research funding has therefore increased in the country: today, Dimat operates the were built, as well as over a hundred new substantially in the past decade, even southern hemisphere’s first aberration- campuses for existing universities. The though it has been mostly financed by the corrected electron microscope. The last — number of students at federal universities government. Recently, National Institutes CTBE — represents the investment of the doubled in the last eight years. The in Science and Technology have been Brazilian government to maintain Brazil’s programme to combat illiteracy is today established by the federal government leading position as one of the world’s most held in nearly 2,000 cities with indices through a nationwide competition, important sources of renewable energy. higher than 25%. The average number of following the successful steps of previous Moving now to the personal level, research years in basic school in 1992 was below programmes such as the Millenium funding per researcher in Brazil is at the five, whereas in 2008 it surpassed an Institutes (2001) and the National Research same level compared to the most wealthy average of seven years. The present state of Networks (2006). These large thematic nations (Fig. 3c), although when the same undergraduate and graduate education is projects have allowed the establishment value is plotted per capita (Fig. 3d), a discussed below. of networks of researchers selected by large discrepancy is still seen. This shows Brazil’s population is close to excellence, who can nowadays work in that despite recent increases in numbers, 193 million, with 28.5% aged between strong collaboration in long-term financed Brazil’s research community is still 15–29 years old. According to the projects. Strategic research centres have relatively small. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas also been created and financed, such as Educacionais Anísio Teixeira, in 2008 more the Centro de Tecnologias Estratégicas Does Brazil have critical mass? than 2,000 education institutions offered do Nordeste (CETENE); the Materials The present stable economy in Brazil is almost 25,000 undergraduate courses. More Metrology Division (Dimat) at the allowing the country to attack its most than 3 million seats are offered by selective Brazilian Metrology Institute (Inmetro; serious societal problem, the very low processes in undergraduate programmes Fig. 4); and the Biofuels Laboratory in education level of the population, which is that have more than 300,000 professors. Most colleges are linked to the private abGDP per capita (1,000 US$) sector (over 90%), while universities are 0 10 20 30 40 50 evenly distributed between the public and USA Japan the private sectors. China Korea Japan USA In 2009 there were over 4,000 graduate India Germany Germany Singapore courses in Brazil, including 1,500 PhD Russia Australia programmes (34.4%) and more than 52,000 UK France France UK professors. At the end of 2009 there were Brazil Canada Italy Portugal 160,000 graduate students, 58,000 in PhD Mexico China Spain Spain programmes; this number was below 1,000 Korea Italy in the early 1980s. Interestingly, there is a Canada Brazil Turkey Russia clear correlation between the number of Indonesia Argentina Iran Mexico PhDs and the number of articles published 00510 15 123 in journals with international circulation. GDP (trillion US$) GDP investment in R&D (%) Also remarkable is the change in scholarship cd modalities given by CNPq and CAPES to Brazilian students and researchers in the Germany USA past six years: first, the number of inland USA Singapore Italy Japan fellowships had a 50% increase, while the Singapore Germany Japan Korea number of fellowships for studying abroad France Australia Korea Canada has stopped growing. Second, within Australia UK these fellowships for studying abroad, the Brazil France Canada Spain number of fellowships for developing a PhD UK Italy Spain Portugal programme in another country reduced Mexico Russia Portugal Brazil by about 50%, while the number of short- China China term interchange periods (visiting projects, Argentina Argentina Russia Mexico post-docs and sabbaticals) increased. These 00100,000 200,000 500 1,000 1,500 changes indicate the maturity of Brazilian R&D funding per researcher (US$) R&D funding per capita (US$) graduate programmes. Fortunately, the number of students and researchers going Figure 3 | Science funding. a, The coloured bars show the GDP of the world’s 17 richest countries, abroad and not returning to Brazil is very according to the International Monetary Fund. The solid line shows the GDP per capita. b, Percentage of low, as Brazilians are generally attached the GDP applied to research and development (R&D) so far in 2010. c, Research funding per researcher. to their culture and the country is able to d, Research funding per capita. The data are obtained from the Brazilian Department for Science and guarantee a good working structure for Technology and are updated frequently7. new researchers.

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the status of materials research in Brazil With appropriate infrastructure, investment and levels of educational, nowadays there is in Brazil a relatively large community of physicists, chemists and engineers Administration Optics performing high-level research in materials science. For instance, the Encontro National Chemistry Thermal de Física da Matéria Condensada (National Mechanics Condensed Matter Physics Meeting) and materials of the Brazilian Physical Society began Electricity and with 80 participants in 1978 and is held telecommunications annually, with about 1,300 participants in 2010. The Brazilian Materials Research Society, founded in 2001, also holds annual Acoustics and meetings with about the same number of vibrations participants. The international visibility of this community has also increased, as indicated by the organization of several international conferences such as the Eighth International Conference on the Science and Application of Nanotubes (NT07); the International Conference on the Physics Figure 4 | Part of the scientific campus of the Brazilian Metrology Institute (Inmetro). The campus is of Semiconductor (ICPS 2008); and the based on a special geological area and far from any urban centre. Most laboratories are built on top of International Conference on Advanced concrete, rubber and sand, without physical connections with neighbouring laboratories and corridors. Materials (ICAM 2009), all held in Brazil. Picture courtesy of Inmetro. International prizes have also been awarded. For instance, the 2009 Sômiya Award from the International Union of in a journal such as Nature Materials: courses in Brazil are technology oriented. Materials Research Societies recognized in these past eight years the journal On the other hand, however, researchers the importance of seven researchers in the has published more than 800 papers by themselves need to focus on frontier field of carbon, and three of them were authors from the United States, over aspects of more risky but potentially from Brazil. The number of articles and 200 from the United Kingdom, more than more relevant problems, submitting their citations has also been strongly increased, 100 from Japan, and merely four from work to the most visible journals whenever as demonstrated above by those in the Brazil. Another example is the number they find exciting results, rather than theme ‘carbon’. of patents: of the 499 Brazilian patents focusing on publishing partial results requested to the United States Patent and to increase the total number of papers. Trademark Office in 2008, only 131 were Only in this way can researchers build the Researchers need to focus granted, a very low number for a country scientific basis for economic and social on frontier aspects of more that wants to transfer its scientific outcomes development with strong participation to society. of the national industrial sector. Once risky but potentially more such a shift in attitude has occurred, we relevant problems. approaching the critical point will not have to wait long for Brazilian Brilliant flares in science and innovation, science to exploit its full potential and like the work of Santos Dumont and reach the level of excellence enjoyed by This rise in the size of the materials Chagas, seem not to have inspired in other countries. ❐ science community is also evident from Brazil a ‘mass production’ of innovative the number of publications. So far in 2010 minds. A very respectable infrastructure Ado Jorio, Francisco César de Sá Barreto, there have been about 1,000 Brazilian is in place: over 800,000 Brazilian students José Francisco de Sampaio and Hélio Chacham papers in journals specializing in materials graduated in 2008; the size of the research in the Departamento de Física, Universidade science. But although this number is community and the available funding Federal de Minas Gerais, Av. Antonio Carlos, 6627, almost an order of magnitude smaller than for research will probably continue to Campus Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, in countries such as Germany, England, increasing at a higher rate. With sustainable Brazil 30.123-970. France and the United States, it has grown economic growth and the considerable e-mail: [email protected] exponentially in the past decades, as increase in the level of education in Brazil, References illustrated in Fig. 2b. The scenario is very the time has come for a transition from 1. Marris, E. Nature 442, 624–626 (2006). similar for condensed-matter physics, with solid but incremental science towards 2. Woods, W. I., Falcão, N. P. S. & Teixeira, W. G. Nature about 3,000 papers and more than 40,000 real innovative research. What is needed 443, 144 (2006). citations; again, not yet at the level of other is a phase transition that should be based 3. Falcão, N. P. S. & Borges, L. F. Acta Amazonica 36, 401–406 (2006). countries, but dramatically higher than not on two strongly correlated aspects. On 4. Cunha, T. J. F. et al. Rev. Bras. Ciênc. Solo too long ago. the one hand, the country needs a closer 33, 85–93 (2009). A more problematic picture emerges if connection between the economy and 5. Woods, W. I. & McCann, J. M. in Desarrollo Sostenible en la we look at publications that reflect clear science, with the involvement of the Amazonía. Mito o Realidad? (eds Hiraoka, M. & Mora, S.) 23–30 (Abya-Yala, 2001). conceptual advances. As an example, national industrial sector — it should be 6. Glaser, B. et al. Org. Geochem. 31, 669–678 (2000). we can just consider the publications noted that less than one fifth of graduate 7. http://go.nature.com/WXvSXH

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